A camera is an important component for a monitoring system. Due to limitations of the lens shooting angle, the common single-lens cameras available from the market can only shoot scenes from relatively small angles. Due to the shooting angle of the camera, pictures can only be taken at a small angle, with a small view angle and more blind spots, and thus it is unable to meet the needs of large-scale outdoor monitoring, such as monitoring of large roads, bridges, squares, roofs, or the like.
In the prior art, a video monitoring camera includes an image sensor for acquiring images, an image processor for encoding and performing analog-to-digital conversion on the images acquired by the image sensors, communication transmission lines and power transmission lines. Some video monitoring cameras further include a server for performing post-processing and integration on the images encoded by video monitoring cameras, so that the pictures shot are presented with a certain angle and quality when being displayed in a back-end.
Multi-lens panoramic cameras can avoid the drawbacks of single-lens cameras in monitoring. A conventional video monitoring camera can only receive images from one image sensor, and its monitoring range is generally less than 150 degrees of a view angle. In order to achieve monitoring within 180 degrees in horizontal, it is necessary to place additional monitoring cameras to coverage a greater view angle and to stitch images acquired by a plurality of cameras by a server, which results in high equipment costs. For the case that images acquired by a plurality of cameras are stitched into one image, the cameras should be placed strictly in a certain angle according to standards, otherwise it will seriously affect the effect of stitching, which increases the difficulty in installation and testing on site.
No effective solution has been proposed so far to solve the above problem.